A "change of basis" is an action performed in linear algebra, whereby a change in fundamental structure yields an entirely new viewpoint. This blog began as a record of a pedagogical change of basis for me, and continues as an ongoing account of my thoughts as I design and direct courses in mathematics at the University of North Carolina, Asheville.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Well, we're finally here. The end of the semester is upon us. Yesterday brought us the last day of class, tonight's will be the final problem session, and tomorrow will see the Symposium on Linear Algebra and Its Applications.

During the past few days I've read through five or six drafts of final papers; written a ton of Mathematica code to simulate moves in Monopoly, to translate between various representations of color, and to analyze traffic flow; and helped several teams plow through some fairly dense source material. All in all, the projects have come along nicely, and I know I'm not the only one looking forward to tomorrow's presentations. Several folks have told me how excited they are, how much fun they've had, and how proud they are of the work they've done.

I don't recall if I've yet mentioned that about a week ago I submitted an Information Literacy Intensive proposal for the course. If we get that picked up, that's one more checkbox all of the people under the ILS system can put a mark in. Woo hoo!

Right now, I've got to go and do a little tweaking with some of the color simulation Mathematica code I worked up the other day. Toodles!

3 comments:

That depends on the quickness of the committee. I've not yet received an acknowledgement of receipt of the proposal from the Chair of the ILI Committee...so it could be a little while. (We're not all quick on the draw like you and I are!)